HackNBlog @ Salamanteri Server

Okay, I just shamelessly copied this entry with minor modification from one of my favorite blogs, Steve Parker’s uRandom, but I felt it was important enough. The entry at uRandom quoted another webpage and linked to it. Below is just a copy of what Steve has on his entry.

From the page:

In just 20 minutes, he found and cloned the passports of two very unaware US citizens

Do watch the 5-minute video: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/02/video-hacker-war-drives-san-francisco-cloning-rfid-passports/.

Btw, Steve, if offended about me copying your entry, take contact and I’ll remove or rewrite the thing. Hope you wont though ;)

Perhaps you, like many *nix users, like to remotely connect to your desktop and/or servers and thus are propably running an ssh-server. If so and you have ever checked logs for failed attempts to log in then you know that attempts to login with random usernames and passwords are made constantly. And finally, if you are like me, you are constantly worried that your username and the password, even though naturally a hard one to come up with, might one day be entered by person - or rather a brute force password cracking script - and thus your system getting compromized. There is a simple tool to deny hosts from connecting the ssh-server (couple tools even, but here is one) after failing defined number of times - and if configured to, the program will send email report of new denied hosts and suspicious connection attempts. denyhosts is the program I use for this, and here is how to set up it:

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Note! This post discusses a lot about program here and often elsewhere called “SecureROM” - apparently the correct name would be SecuROM

Something interesting I bumped into… There is a good bunch of examples of why DRM protection of software (usually games) is a bad idea. Most notable reasons being as simple as following: While DRM protection has not prevented a single game from becoming available as pirate copy with protection being removed, for those willing to buy the game the copy protection does instead create problems ranging from minor annoying to outrageous problems concerning functionality of the whole operating system. This alone should be reason enough to abandon DRM technologies but still several companies don’t seem to understand this… Today I bumped into good example of how trying to use DRM as futile attempt to prevent a game from being pirated can also be a massive failure creating a huge loss in game sales and resulting to 100% opposite effect than what was hoped. Electronic Arts has been using a DRM system named “SecureROM” on some of their games, including their hit game “Spore” which has resulted in huge losses for the company itself. This protection software can rightfully be considered as highly harmful malware. Some of the things the user should know of what happens when you install Spore obtained from legitimate source and thus requiring SecureROM:

• SecureROM is cant be uninstalled by uninstalling Spore, nor with uninstaller of it’s own. The user has to do certain special steps to get rid of it.
• SecureROM constantly monitors usage of the system and thus creates possible and severe security risks, uses system resources (CPU and memory) all the time and thus generally lowers usability and security of the system.
• Cripples functionality of the whole operating system. According to several users this malware has, for example, prevented the OS from recognizing some hardware changes like installing a new dvd-drive. Some users have also reported not being able to burn any data on DVD’s. In some cases apparently the whole OS has stopped to function after CPU or motherboard change (or other large changes in hardware) when SecureROM is installed.
• and more…

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